Shareholder Activism On The Rise

According to recent studies, the rate of successful shareholder activism is on the rise. While historically high when compared to the relative ownership percentage of those campaigning, new data from North America and Europe demonstrates a climbing success rate for activist campaigns.

Studies that measure shareholder activism often organize their success-rate analysis by either a success-per-shareholder-demand variable, which measures the amount of successful changes to a company against the amount of total activist demands, or based on overall "engagement outcomes",¹ which measure success against the amount of total activist campaigns (which may contain multiple demands). Both indicators attempt to capture the amount of successful shareholder requests for changes to a company, including board of director replacements; changes to the pay-out policies, buybacks or increased dividends; restructuring of assets; takeovers;² and changes to a company's expenditure policies